Obscure toy of the week: Panda SAM

The Super Animal Machine or SAM for short comes from a design team called Red Magic based Hong Kong who also make the more well known CiBoys.

Apparently they are supposed to be aliens who have come to earth disguised as animals, although the only ones they make are variants on pandas. I’ve scratched my head about this one and the only logical reason I can find for the name is that they could have been called SPAM (Super Panda Animal Machines) or something similar which would never do. Anyway, daft name aside, the are so darn cute.

What I really love about these, apart from the cuteness, is that they are really solid and weighty. It’s nice to feel something that is really there and not something flimsy and breakable. They are around three inches tall and both theirs heads and legs are attached via ball and socket joints so that they can be posed at a jaunty angle.

You can pick a few up from online stores in the u.k for around the three pound mark but to get a better range you need to order from ebay stores in Hong Kong, just don’t buy more than £15 worth at once or you will be stung for shocking customs handling fees.

Secret Base. Mmmmmm………..

Being of the skint starving artist type (Well I would be if it wasn’t for Lidl) I spend an awful lot of time coveting stuff I can’t afford. Somewhere on the top of this list of unattainable wonders is nearly everything I see on the Secret Base website. I often wonder whether I would be so keen on it if it wasn’t so damnably hard to get hold of. Even looking at the website is a trial. For a start you will probably have to install Kanji fonts on your pooter, then you have to reload it half a dozen times to actually get the page buttons to work. Once you have all this sorted you can ogle the weird and wonderful plastic toys and weirdly out of context fashion accessories. Zombie Dennis the Menace in Japan? And British Dennis the Menace at that!

You might even think about trying to buy something…  If you want to take that thought a stage forward, may your god help you. Firstly, you will realise that you haven’t a hope in hell of fitting into the clothes as they are so very tiny. Secondly, once you convert the price/telephone number from yen you will wish you hadn’t bothered as you will then need to crawl under a rock and wait for that long lost rich relative to pop their clogs. If you are still not put off, you can e-mail them to enquire about getting your potential purchase sent to you only to be told the next day that it is sold out. (Can you tell I’ve had personal experience of this?) Anyway, it’s lovely , lovely stuff and if you own any, please don’t tell me about it because I will cry.

http://www.secret-b.com/